Yonah Mountain (3166′), better known as Mount Yonah, is the great natural landmark of the Sautee-Nacoochee Valley. Located between Cleveland and Helen, it is seen here from its eastern slope. Yonah means bear in Cherokee. It is located within the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest.
Today, Helen is known for its kitschy Alpine/Bavrian appearance and for the numerous outdoor recreation opportunities at its doorstep. But the village didn’t start out this way. The area was long occupied by Native Americans and in the 19th century became a hub for gold mining. It was a transient community during this time.
It was incorporated in 1913, due to the presence of the large Byrd-Matthews sawmill and named for a daughter of one of the timer company’s partners. It was successful until the Great Depression but after its closure the town fell into decline.
In 1968, Pete Hodkison, a local business owner, approached renowned Clarkesville artist John Kollock about suggestions for improving the appearance of his business. Kollock had been stationed in Bavaria while in the military and had long fostered an idea of bringing the look of the region to Northeast Georgia. Work began January 1969, after other local business owners warmed to Kollock’s idea to reimagine the entire town as an Alpine village. The Orbit Manufacturing Company was the first to be transformed. At the outset, there were just nine businesses in Helen but today there are nearly 30. All of the ornamental trim and details were originally done by Ray L. Sims and J. S. Chastain, local builders.
Helen has fewer than 500 permanent residents but at any given time is filled with tourists. It’s among the most popular tourist destinations in Georgia with up to 1.5 million visitors annually. The river attracts thrill-seekers and ecotourists and the shops and restaurants are a popular draw. Some have called it a tourist trap, and while it may have that feel, many visitors soon realize that the appearance of the place is but a small part of its appeal. Perhaps it took the Alpine look to bring people to the area in the 1960s but Helen’s perfect location and natural beauty are as big a draw today as its aesthetic. I prefer to think of it as a base of operations for great adventures to be found all around.
At Helen, not far from its source, the Chattahoochee is one of Georgia’s most natural and beautiful rivers.
The Helen to Hardman Heritage Trail is one of the nicest walking/hiking trails in Northeast Georgia, following the Chattahoochee River from the edge of downtown Helen to the Hardman Farm State Historic Site.
Much of the prime riverside property was donated to the Trust for Public Land in 2007 by Ted Turner and his foundations, insuring forever its protection from development. The one mile trail (2 miles round trip) is also ADA accessible.
Lush vegetation and pristine river views can be found all along the paved trail. We also found a few bear scratches, so be careful on the trail.
In Helen, access the trail from the parking lot just below the Helen Tubing & Water Park off Edelweiss Strasse.
White County was an important center of gold mining and this abandoned tunnel and equipment along the Chattahoochee at Helen are remnants of the boom era of the late 19th century.
The Plattsburgh Mining Company of New York was involved in the area, most notably with the England Mine.
This was built by the original owner of Nora Mill, John Martin, and was later owned by the Hardman and Ivie families. It once served as a boarding house/hotel and is now home to an antique mall.
Nacoochee Valley Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Built in 1876 by John Martin, a gold miner who decided to stay in the valley, Nora Mill got is present name when purchased by Dr. Lamartine Hardman around 1903. He christened it Nora Mill to honor the memory of his sister.
Instead of the typical water wheel usually associated with milling, Nora Mill utilizes a turbine, fed by a raceway, and gravity, to grind the grain. The 1500-lb. French Burr millstones have been turning out product for nearly 150 years.
In the early 1980s retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ron Fain leased the mill from the Hardman family and thereafter revived it. His family continues to operate it to this day. The third and fourth generation of the family (Joann Fain Tarpley and husband Rich) run it today.
Tommy Martin has been the manager for many years and is glad to talk about the process and the history of the mill with visitors. His enthusiasm for the place certainly makes you want to return again and again. He told me that the corn meal is popular far and wide, and that Shaquille O’Neal had recently placed a large order for his new restaurant in Los Angeles.
Nacoochee Valley Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Though it has been moved and reduced in size, this depot is an important survivor of the Gainesville & Northwestern Railroad.
Nacoochee Valley Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This gazebo-topped mound at the edge of the Nacoochee Valley near Helen is one of the most iconic and most-photographed locations in Georgia. But much of what you know about it may not be true. For starters, it isn’t the original mound, but a reconstruction completed after an archaeological excavation. There were at least a dozen such mounds in the Nacoochee Valley at one time, but as the land was converted to agricultural use, all but this one were destroyed. Traditionally, it was believed that this was a relic of the Cherokee, and a Georgia historical marker at the site still makes this case, but research now invalidates this. The confusion can likely be attributed to the long held myth of star-crossed lovers Sautee, a Chickasaw warrior, and Nacoochee, a Cherokee chieftain’s daughter. Supposedly, they fell in love after a chance meeting and sought refuge on adjacent Mt. Yonah. When Nacoochee’s father became aware of the relationship, he ordered Sautee thrown from the mountaintop while his terrified daughter was forced to watch. She then jumped to her death and locked hands with the dying Sautee at the bottom of the mountain. The legend maintained that they were buried together in the mound. Great story, but almost certainly a myth. Instead it is believed to have been used by a South Appalachian Mississippian tribe, between 800-1600 AD/CE.
If you’ve seen the mound, you might be surprised to learn that it’s nearly 40 feet in height. The average visitor sees it from the roadside and because it sits in the valley, it doesn’t seem that tall. The beautiful gazebo was placed atop the mound by James Hall Nichols after he purchased the property, probably circa 1870. And while a gazebo doesn’t belong on a burial site of this nature, Nichols’s interest in its proximity to the house he was building and the view it afforded likely saved it from the fate of the other mounds in the Nacoochee Valley. A 1915 excavation revealed that there were 75 burials in the mound, confirming the connection to the Mississippian culture. It’s also referred to at the Sautee-Nacoochee Mound.
Nacoochee Valley Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
West End, one of the finest Italianate houses in Georgia, was built by Colonel James Hall Nichols (1834-1897) upon his arrival in the Nacoochee Valley from Milledgeville in 1870. Nichols, who married Kate Latimer of Summerville, South Carolina, in 1856, served in the Confederate Army and was elected captain of the Governor’s Horse Guard in 1862, eventually attaining the rank of colonel. When he returned to Middle Georgia after the war, weak and in declining health, he learned that his wife Kate S. Latimer Nichols had been raped by two Union soldiers. This would affect her mental state for the rest of her life. While convalescing at the White Sulphur Springs Resort near Gainesville, Colonel Nichols became enamored of the Nacoochee Valley and began purchasing large tracts of land in the area. He named the property and house West End, for its location in the valley. Nichols was primarily a gentleman farmer by this time and owned several businesses, including Nora Mill. The mentally incapacitated Kate lived out her days in an upstairs room, unwilling to face the outside world. Anna Ruby, the only child of the Nichols to live to adulthood and namesake of the nearby Anna Ruby Falls, told friends her mother was dead, as to deny her existence and her mental illness. Colonel Nichols had her committed to the State Lunatic Asylum in the early 1890s and she remained there until her death.
Original section of the Unicoi Turnpike, located near the main house
The property was sold to Atlanta entrepreneur Calvin Welborn Hunnicutt (1827-1915) in 1893. Hunnicutt, also a Confederate veteran (organized the Fulton Dragoons) and Fulton County commissioner, was a very successful businessman in postwar Atlanta, owning a plumbing business and stove works. The family never lived in West End but kept it as a retreat and vacation home. The Atlanta Constitution called him Atlanta’s oldest pioneer citizen upon his death. He had been in the city since 1847, when it was still a small village known as Marthasville.
Game lounge
The final owner of the West End property was Dr. Lamartine Griffin Hardman (1856-1937) who purchased it in 1903 and renamed it Elizabeth on the Chattahoochee, in honor of his mother. Hardman was the the son of a physician and a longtime physician himself who was also involved in numerous successful businesses. He joined his father’s practice in 1890 after study in New York, Pennsylvania, and London. He came to the Nacoochee Valley from Harmony Grove (present-day Commerce) and within a few years married the much younger Emma Griffin of Valdosta, whom he had courted for many years. He served in the Georgia House for eight years and sponsored a bill that created the State Board of Health. He also served for a year in the Georgia Senate and then made two unsuccessful runs for governor. He was finally elected to the state’s highest office in 1927 and served two terms.
Greenhouse
Spring House
Gas House
Servants’ quarters and smokehouse
Carriage House
Dairy Barn, built 1910 as the centerpiece of Dr. Hardman’s Nacoochee Dairy
Corn Crib No. 1, built in the 1870s
Corn Crib No. 2
Gear House, where riding gear was kept for convenience. A covered 8-foot-deep cistern was discovered during renovation, and was probably originally used to collect water for the farm’s horses.
General Store
Caretaker’s House (Minish Family Home)
Nacoochee Valley Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 